


Heatherfield Dreaming

by love_killed_the_superstar



Series: the debt of our time [4]
Category: W.I.T.C.H.
Genre: C.H.Y.K.N. Era, F/F, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-08
Updated: 2016-10-08
Packaged: 2018-08-20 04:17:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8235814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/love_killed_the_superstar/pseuds/love_killed_the_superstar
Summary: Yan Lin is lonely, Kadma is frustrated and Halinor is distant.(C.H.Y.K.N. + Grief.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> wow my first w.i.t.c.h. fanfiction since like march or april  
> as usual its kalinor because kalinor is law

“Apologise.”

The words came sudden, loud and with a stony clarity, like Kadma's head had suddenly left the water and she was hearing for the first time. After living in a world of whispers, rumours and heartache for the past three weeks, Yan Lin's voice cut like a knife.

“Uh... what?”

Kadma's first words to Yan Lin since being rudely ejected from Kandrakar could have been a little more well-spoken than what they were, but she felt drunk, in a fog ever since her and Halinor had fallen asleep in each other's arms, shaken and crying.

She wasn't sure how Yan Lin had found her, since she was holed up behind a rock for cover on Shell Beach, which was chilly and biting and bittersweet with memories of Cassidy creating water shows and riding the waves with a laugh that warmed even the worst of moods. Maybe Yan Lin had come down for the same reason, to mourn or to be reminded, but apparently her plan had changed now she had spotted Kadma.

“I said, apologise,” Yan Lin said again. She didn't look like she'd slept since that night, with dark circles under her eyes and an ultimately dead look about her appearance. She wasn't dressed for such cold weather and didn't seem to care, as if she had been sleepwalking awake the entire time. “Set things right.”

“You mean to _him_?” A new jolt of anger shot through her veins, and her gaze upon Yanny hardened. “No way. We weren't wrong! The longer you keep sticking up for him-”

“ _You're_ the reason she isn't in the congregation!” snapped Yan Lin, taking a step forward. “Don't you get that?! The Oracle is angry at you and Halinor! He isn't giving Cassidy a place in the congregation, and it's obviously because he doesn't feel like he can trust any of us! So apologise to him and bring her back!!”

“Telling the Oracle what he wants to hear isn't going to bring her back, Yan Lin!” snapped Kadma. “Wake the fuck up! How can you trust someone who plays with people's lives like that?! If he really wanted Cassidy in the congregation she'd be there, what don't you understand about that?”

Kadma was punched.

Well, it was more like, a gust of air threw her back with the force of a punch.

Yan Lin stood over her, seething, fist raised as Kadma lay on her back in the cold sand, winded. She glared up at her.

“Are you proud of yourself? Using your powers against me? I didn't think you were one for unfair fights, Yanny. Whatever happened to harmony?!”

“Harmony is apologising when you've upset the Oracle so Cassidy can come back into Kandrakar! Harmony is you and Halinor returning to Kandrakar so we can carry on the legacy of the guardians! Harmony is not... leaving me alone!”

Driftwood was flying around like wind chimes, a small tornado of sand was sweeping around them, and the water was flying up and slapping back down again in heavy, confused torrents. Yan Lin was literally creating a small storm on the beach, and Kadma could only shield her eyes from the wrath of her emotions.

“Do you think Nerissa killing Cassidy was harmony?! Do you think that you and Halinor tearing apart the last legs of our team was harmony?!”

Kadma used every last shred of telekinesis she still possessed and the sand flying around her ground to a halt. Yan Lin stared, eyes brimming with tears.

“How,” she mouthed, and Kadma stood up and shoved her to the ground, effectively pinning her.

“Listen here,” she barked. “The Oracle gave Nerissa all the tools she needed to kill Cassidy and pretending he's the good guy isn't going to change anything! When Halinor and I pointed that out, it was his decision to banish us! I won't apologise for calling him out for the bullshit he's been feeding us for almost a decade now!”

Kadma wished Halinor was here right now. Maybe if she was she could talk some sense into Yan Lin. She hadn't gone back to college yet, because they were still being questioned over the 'disappearance' of Cassidy and Nerissa by authorities – but she was living purely among two worlds, her childhood home and the police station, leaving Kadma lonely and, at this moment, vulnerable.

 _If you can hear this, Hal, holy_ shit _please come to Shell Beach. Or Yanny might actually kill me._

“Why can't you stop being selfish for two seconds?!” Yan Lin screamed into her face, curling up her knees and kicking upwards. Kadma fell back with a cry of pain and Yan Lin was on top of her. “Just tell him you're wrong so she can come back!! So we can be the guardians again!”

“That's not going to happen!” roared Kadma. “Fuck, Yanny! Do you think we can just pretend like this never happened if we say we're sorry? I mean, did you think we'd be guardians forever?! Me and Halinor, we have a _life_ ahead of us, a real life, full of college degrees and mortgages and taxes! I don't want to be a guardian anymore, not while Kandrakar's such a shitshow, and I don't want to be a guardian for the rest of my life! Just... let it go. Move on from it.”

Tears rolled down her cheeks.

“I'm not like you, don't you get that?!” Yan Lin croaked. “You and Halinor, you still have each other. What do I have, huh? Cassidy and Nerissa were my best friends, and now they're gone! I don't have goals, or dreams like you two! I don't have love! I'm just... here! Kandrakar is all I have left and you won't even-”

She hiccuped and brought her hands up to her face.

“You won't even try to bring her back. You won't even try to be guardians anymore. How am I supposed to protect the veil on my own?! What am I supposed to do?!”

“That's for the Oracle to figure out, isn't it? You don't think he should have thought things through before killing Cassidy and banishing the rest of us?! You think it's our fault that you're fighting on your own now? We don't _have_ our powers anymore, Yan Lin! Don't you get that? And if you think for a second that he'll let us do everything over if we say sorry for making him look guilty, you're deluded. And I'm telling you that as a friend.”

Yan Lin glared at her.

“Are you?”

The crunching of hardened sand caught Kadma's attention, and she looked up to the sight of Halinor picking her way across the beach frantically.

“What are you two doing?!”

Kadma stepped off from where she had Yan Lin pinned down, and Yan Lin stole the opportunity to grab Kadma in a headlock.

“I'm not deluded! He trusted Nerissa!!”

“Well maybe he shouldn't have!”

“Stop it, stop it right now!” Halinor yanked Yan Lin off of Kadma and acted as a barrier between them, arms splayed out to keep them apart. Fear flashed in her eyes. “What the hell is wrong with you two?! What's going on?!”

“You two need to tell him you were wrong,” cried Yan Lin, frustrated. “Don't you understand? He's punishing Cassidy for what the two of you did! She's gone! She should be in the congregation but she's not!”

“What?” Halinor looked bewildered. “How is that _our_ fault? He's choosing not to follow his own rules, but that's _his_ decision.”

“Because we all know that what he says goes, right?” growled Kadma.

“You two disrespected him.”

“He _endangered_ Cassidy by giving her the Heart, and you're choosing to ignore the part he played in this, Yanny,” Halinor protested, hurt flashing in her eyes. “Goodness. He gambled with her life, and you're defending him.”

“I just want them back,” Yan Lin said with a sob. “I want Nerissa and Cassidy back. I want our team back, I want everything to be how it was before!”

“It's never going to be how it was before,” spat Kadma, rubbing the spot on her neck where Yan Lin had grabbed. “Telling the Oracle we're sorry isn't going to bring Cassidy back to life or stop Nerissa for being the corrupted bitch she became! Fuck! Get some perspective!”

“Kadma, that's enough!”

Halinor gave her a stern look (sending a _keep your mouth shut for a minute, okay?_ her way) and turned back to Yan Lin.

“Yanny, listen to me. You have so much ahead of you, but there is more to life than Kandrakar, and there's more to you than being the guardian of air. I know it's hard, and I know you miss them! We do too! But... but we're not going back to that. We have our reasons, just like you have yours for staying. Apologising won't reverse time, and we can't pretend like it didn't happen. We need time to heal, all of us do.”

She held out a hand and murmured, “Now, let me take you home.”

Yan Lin scrubbed her eyes and nodded dully, pushing past Halinor's outstretched hand and stumbling in the general direction of The Silver Dragon. Halinor squeezed Kadma's shoulder.

“Are you all right?” she asked in a low voice.

“I'll live,” muttered Kadma with a rough shrug. “Look, take care of her, okay? She doesn't want me around right now, but for some reason you can wrap anybody around your finger.”

Halinor began to walk, then hesitated. “Kadma... I'm sorry I've been so distant. I'll stop by your house tonight, all right?”

Kadma nodded, not knowing what else to say, and instead watched Halinor's back grow smaller, until eventually she was out of sight.

 

…

 

Kadma stood out on her balcony for hours that night, waiting for Halinor to show up. It was almost midnight when she did finally appear, shivering in the cold night.

“Oh Juliet,” she teased. “Like the sun.”

“Don't be cute,” Kadma said sternly. “What took you so long?”

Halinor hesitated, fidgeting with her hands.

“Well... Yanny was in a really bad state after we parted ways. She started crying, begging me to stay... I couldn't just leave her like that. I waited until she was okay, and, I got here as fast as I could.”

“It's late, Hal. I didn't think you were going to show.”

“Well, I did, all right?” Halinor said hotly, frowning up at Kadma. “I came here because we need to talk. We've hardly seen each other since...”

“Since we told the Oracle to sit 'n spin? Since we got stripped of our powers? Since Nerissa stabbed us right in the-”

“Yes, since then,” Halinor hissed, glancing around her and sighing loudly.“I... this was a lot easier when you could just boost me up with the vines.”

“You'll have to climb up then, like an actual Romeo,” snapped Kadma, turning her back on Halinor. “Look, I called for you plenty of times! But you'll only see me when Yanny's about to kill me?!”

Taking the initiative, Halinor grabbed a ladder from the yard and began to climb the rungs. “Things have been busy, with the investigation and all... my parents came back to a damn double missing person's case, both girls our age, our friends, so of course they're protective over me right now! They won't even let me go back to college yet, they're really strict about when I leave the house, and when I do I have to be accompanied by somebody! So, yes, you're right, I haven't been around. I'm sorry for that, but I can't exactly get away easily.”

She hopped over the balcony and sat on the edge, fiddling with her hands nervously. “Not to mention... it's been hard, dealing with what happened. I still don't know how to feel, one minute I'm crying and blaming myself, the next I'm furious at the Oracle... I feel like, there was something we could have done, or... maybe if we'd been there-”

“You can't keep thinking like this,” Kadma ground out. “You're supposed to be the logical one, damn you. We can't change the past, so we should stop tricking ourselves into believing we can.”

“Sorry I'm not this perfect girl you seem to think I am,” Halinor choked out, eyes burning. She hung her head. “I don't know how to deal with something like this. We're being questioned about their big 'disappearance'... we have to act like, like we don't know what happened, that we don't know Cassidy is six feet under and Nerissa is sealed away forever! It's not easy for me, okay?”

Kadma reached over and squeezed Halinor's hand.

“Hey. I... I'm sorry. I get it, you know? We're dealing in different ways, and it's hard. But I'm scared. I don't want us to break apart over this, I want to cherish you for my whole life, but we're seeing each other less and less and when we do we're snapping at each other like this...”

Halinor looked up at her, teary-eyed, and said thickly, “We're not. I love you with all my heart, but we're grieving, so of course we're losing our minds over this. I'm sorry too.”

Kadma hugged Halinor tight.

“Please stay tonight,” she whispered.

“I can't,” Halinor said quietly, burying her head into Kadma's shoulder. “My parents will notice. Next thing you know, they'll be calling out a search party.”

Kadma sniffled.

“But I want you to stay.”

“I know you do. But we have tomorrow, and the day after, and the rest of our lives. I will see you tomorrow, dear friend, I promise you.” Halinor pulled away, kissing Kadma's forehead softly, and began to climb down the ladder again. When she reached the bottom, she blew another kiss to Kadma, who shook her head and smiled.

“Candyass. Go home, before I beg you to stay.”

“Try and sleep, Kadma. Things will get better.”

Once again Kadma watched Halinor walk away, watching her hair shine in the dim moonlight until it was lost in the shadows of the night.

 

**Author's Note:**

> i have way more inspiration for the fic that comes after this one, so that's why this feels rushed as fuck


End file.
